


sandwiches are more than just sandwiches thank you very much

by maryams



Series: i think you missed a period or two or maybe some common sense [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Confessional Poetry, Poetry, Poetry About Concepts, Poetry About Stuff, Poetry Dump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 19:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 68
Words: 12,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5755009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryams/pseuds/maryams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>an anthology; 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1/30/14: why we don't speak

**Author's Note:**

> it gets bad before it gets better  
> AKA the first couple chapters are early works
> 
> I also own up to any problematic thinking and poems. They are there. I'm sorry. I'm a work in progress. 
> 
> all poems and media are mine. all rights reserved. please ask before using.

we're not sorry  
we're dancing  
on top of candied graves  
with sugared skulls  
on stimulated highs

we're not rough  
or jagged, jaded  
we're broken and wounded  
clinging to  
roving lights and hazy fights  
with crystal eyes brightly shining  
against drooping wallpapers

photo booth memories  
boardwalk nightmares  
it's sandy beaches  
inside the eye of  
the hurricane ripping us to shreds

spinning on mountain tops  
on bottle caps and  
Broken glass  
underneath bare feet  
bared hearts, scars

(we plague  
we're plagued  
we're not sorry  
we're just breathing  
in the chaos  
channeling it  
letting it run  
in our veins)

and tattooed mouths  
wrapped around  
inked words that sear  
scorch the ceiling  
the skyline  
With our destruction

but our hooded figures  
we hide in the shadows  
of our drugs and music  
waiting for the day  
we bring the sunlight  
and swallow it


	2. 1/30/14: acid drool

curved lips   
languid tongues  
grazing teeth

breathing fire  
breathings smoke  
breathing plague

it's wet and it's messy  
it's crazed and rush  
it's in the moment

anger pulsing and  
bodies humming  
words are screaming  
but never saying a word

glassy eyes   
swallow the   
sullied words

and breaking hearts  
embrace tainted words  
with familiarity

huffed cheeks  
throbbing chests  
tousled hair

and you're on fire  
you're words are on fire  
but you swallow the fire  
let it burn its way out  
but never leaving

let it set aflame  
your every vein  
and when  
he's asleep  
the acid drool  
slips and burns a hole

that no bandage can fix


	3. 1/31/14: find me

take a tumble into the depths  
lose your graces   
along the way  
abandon all care  
and take a dance with me

wrap your fingers  
your soul   
around mine  
and feel my conquest  
let my fire warm you  
but be warned  
i burn like a mother

and as your fingers clasp  
and cling and ache  
to find mine once more  
after i let go  
remember that i warned you  
i run at the drop of a hat

and leave you gasping  
on your knees with  
matted hair and swearing hearts  
it's unfair, it's unfair  
feel the words  
lunge out of your throat  
from your chest

and feel my flame burn a mark  
and your skin  
and my whispered words  
that graced your spine  
inked onto your bones  
my parting gift


	4. 1/31/14: dashboard roses

fill the dashboard with roses  
like you'd fill a page with words  
or a scrapbook with images

paint a picture with the story of your life  
worded with prose and daisies  
and set on rocky canvases

tumble out, stumble out of  
the eighties, the seventies  
with gelled hair and  
skater skirts  
and rolling hips

white teeth grazing  
lustrous red lips  
leaving marks on  
neon lights that light up the sky  
with beer-stained sidewalks

twirl and dance  
and grind and spin  
dance the motherfucking night away  
because it's all you have

take the nights by the balls  
and chase the stars  
until they're running  
with the moon between their legs

because your light's too bright  
to be snuffed out tonight

and in the morning  
another rose on your dashboard  
for another night, another conquest  
that scorched the valleys to ash


	5. 1/31/14: nights

my nights go down  
the lenght of my pencil  
and spill onto paper

my thoughts come alive  
in the ink that  
dances across my fingers

weary, teary eyes  
swallow the images of  
a world so broken, so golden  
that every touch

leaves an acid burn  
cigarette scars  
bleeding wounds  
on blank skin  
waiting to be touched

for the fortress be torn down  
to be burned to the ground  
and for the anthem  
to echo through the   
nightly sky   
and blaze the night away

from a heart aching to dance  
with a hunger burning itself   
hands grasping at threads not there  
and spinning walls  
that are closing in

far too fast


	6. 2/3/14: hand

scratched words come to life  
against steamy glass panels  
instead of torn shower curtains

a lone hand presses against the world  
groping for an adventure  
to bring life into the lines  
wrinkled on her skin

her fingers twirl air  
to search for that story  
the energy that will bring the light   
back to her breaking eyes

aching bones slide down the porcelain tub  
and her hands cover her face  
tearing through cheeks and teeth  
burning acid down her throat

it's an ache, an urge  
an ungodly pain  
yearning for adeventure

stretching beyond the horizon  
screaming for the moon   
for the stars and for the sun  
to feel the sky   
wrap around her bruised body

for the wind to encase her  
for tree bark, for steel cars  
for the roses in the wild  
to slice her paper skin

because this town is too small  
the walls are closing in  
and she's breathing in ash  
that chokes her soul


	7. 2/14/14: humanity

there's so much life, so much energy  
searing through our veins  
it lights up our souls  
and tears open gates to heaven  
and leaves us wheezing for air

such precious things, we cling to  
we're all oh so, so deliciously human  
yearning for compassion and our next breath  
waiting for hat to drop  
and for our flame to implode

we're spinning through our torrents of emotions  
trying to make sense of nature  
when we can't even stand on our two feet  
trying to make our walls stand tall

we're struggling and fighting  
it's just all a giant race  
a towering pit of   
everything crammed into one body  
we're twisting ourselves disproportionate 

we shriek and our words pierce the nights  
but words never slide down our tongues  
we rip each other to shreds   
and never do we interact  
we lose ourselves in the music of our lives  
and shine so bright our sins bask in glory

it's all so human  
it's all so wonderfully cruel  
and it all spills out onto paper  
alongside the high moon  
feeling so, so alive  
but so, so insane at the same time

is our humanity really just  
insanity in desperation for being alive?  
for understanding your next breath?  
the blood that runs through your empty vessel?  
to understand the pulse of the earth spinning beneath our feets?  
the screaming emotions that devour us, wholly and completely?

what is humanity really?  
because sometimes, it seems so cruel.  
too cruel that it's wonderful.


	8. 2/14/14: one in the morning

it's 1:22 in the morning  
and last year I was crying   
over how lost I felt

but now I feel like  
my world was shot   
in the middle of a war

last year I was crying because I was so alone

and now I feel even more alone  
but moreover so, I cry for the loneliness of others  
and can't they see the perpetual loneliness stretching in front of them?

and I just reblogged  
a neon toothbrush

and I'm contemplating the silly things   
we, humans, do  
and what makes us better   
than the dogs we train or   
the trees we chop down

I think that maybe  
just maybe  
this music is getting to my brain  
maybe this music is too strong  
because I think my visions blurry  
and my motions slothy  
and everything seems so bright  
and this music is echoing  
off of the taverns of my mind

because it's 1:23 in the morning  
and I feel like crying  
and jumpin gout of the window  
and letting the snow freeze me until I burn

but I also feel like laughing  
and embracing everyone   
until everything I feel  
spreads like a virus  
because life is just so damn happy and nice  
who knew the world could be such a nice place?

and now it's 1:25 in the morning  
and I'm like a rebecca black song stuck on repeat  
because really, we all can read a damn clock  
but I'm just sad because I can't be compassionate

so I'll spill my guts onto paper  
and wrap it up with mock grammar  
and high class words trying to  
seem more humble than pretentious  
trying to preach a message that  
i'll really be the only one who'd understand

and it hasn't even been ten minutes  
but i feel like I've lived much longer  
than I ever have and than I ever will  
because shit, right now I feel like the only one truly living  
truly breathing in the music   
in this deadened, blackened house  
where it's too silent for there to be any breathing

and damn, this music  
is really flowing through me  
and stirring up hurricanes within my fingers  
that laid dormant throughout the snowy day  
and hell, it's in japanese and I can't even understand it  
yet it's ripping through my mysteries so fast I'm barely breathing

maybe I should stop listening  
but I feel liberated like  
the my sins and lack thereof of my humanity  
can exist within me and not eat me alive

and now it's 1:32 in the morning  
and I just passed Katy Perry   
clad in a leather bra and jacket  
and I don't feel the burden of fatigue  
but hell,do I want to sleep  
because I cannot fathom I made the connect between the two in my head

and maybe this poem is way too long  
and listening to music this late maybe is too influential  
and maybe sleeping is a good idea  
and maybe these toxic thoughts are not my medicine

but i'm on top of the world  
volatile and ticking  
and i don't want to turn off the music,   
my thoughts, my mind and sleep  
because I fear that in the morning  
I'll try to reach back into the past,   
trying to feel so alive and free again


	9. 2/17/14: she

looks like a girl  
but she's toxic haze  
slick and smooth  
sliding her way through  
and setting fire to  
your bloodstream

like a drug,  
she'll hook you  
with pictures of  
shady clubs and empty promises  
of oblivion 

she'll play your veins  
like the strings of a guitar  
singing to a woeful song  
while her red lips stretched taut  
into a cruel smirk 

don't be fooled  
you fool, she'll choke you  
drain you dry  
until you're nothing but  
a leather skin in the puddles  
a husk of what you used to be

aching and gasping-  
pathetically I might add-  
screaming until your voice cracks  
for her to come back  
but she won't

this is my promise  
it's not empty like hers  
i won't leave you like she did

no  
not like she did

much worse

i'd leave without a second glance  
harsh words shining lights on   
the sad, unfortunate truth  
would be my last words

and i'd leave you without a coat  
and let the cold   
crawl into your bones

i'd cut you like a snake  
burn you like a dragon  
and i'd walk away   
with the grace of a lioness

so stop your moping  
and your bitching  
and pick yourself up  
before the big bad wolf comes to get you

because pray  
you can't admit you  
didn't see this coming  
after all  
I did warn you


	10. 2/28/14: guitar strings

I never realized how pleasing guitars sound  
and in the night when its dark and its all I hear  
i feel the strings strum the veins in my body  
like they were meant to sing 

and when it's all i hear, the music  
it flows through my arms like electricity  
and it makes the ends of my hair stand  
it's a standing ovation

i could lose myself in the sea of sound  
i could close my eyes and find myself   
in a castle standing on piles of burnt matches  
with hair plucked from the backs of angels

or i could close my eyes  
and find myself in a cave  
pictures of my life like a movie   
pinned on the walls and pointing out  
my misgivings like a billboard sign on the highway


	11. 3/10/14: whole life

they say that the city never sleeps  
but all I can hear is the   
drowsy breaths humming through  
every vein, every subway  
riddled with stories passing like the wind

leaving me glued in place  
drawing conclusions in the clouds  
and closing stories with the moon  
writing off chapters with a sunburn  
left on my eye

and when the stars allign,  
i realize

that I could have lived my whole life  
and never have hurt as much  
as I did by your side

but I could have lived my whole life  
and never have hurt as much  
as I did by your side  
but I wouldn't be able to listen  
to every quiver in this foresaken city

because it's the silence that brings  
the air into my lungs  
and the carbon dioxide out

and it's the silence   
that brings me back to  
hating how the words spilled out of your mouth  
to the fire burning in every muscle  
screaming back through a passive mask

and it's the silence  
that lets me swallow the truth  
and let it slither down my throat

it's the silence that lets me  
open my eyes and see  
everything that we could have been  
and feel it in every pore of my skin  
to be grateful that we didn't

because surely, if I would have lived my whole life with you  
it wouldn't have been much of a (long) life at all


	12. 3/23/14: invincible-vulnerable

these days, we walk out  
and the sun holds our fragile skin  
in it's molten palm

these days, it's all about  
calculating numbers of cells  
and calories and pounds  
and percentages and hours and genes  
that apparently have our lives mapped out

these days, it seems like  
everything can kill you  
everything holds a piece of our flesh  
for ransom to the highest bidder

and these days, it seems  
you can't buy it back  
because the price is too steep

and these days, I noticed  
everything has a price  
a dollar sign or a  
body part attached in fine print

when did these days  
turn into our last?  
because it seems that  
we are no longer invincible

we are much more vulnerable  
it seems  
than we were back then  
(back when we wore tunics  
and worked the earth barren)  
why is that?

they sell us stories in black ink and glossy paper  
about how we have never been greater,  
(they say to us from LCD plasma screens)  
but how can we be at our greatest?

when we tirelessly search  
for The Next Big Thing   
to save us from The Next Big Baddie  
that appeared from the nature  
that kept us alive all these years?

but please don't take me wrong  
Mr. Man, sir.  
I'm not a delinquent or a no good hippie  
I promise I won't try to bomb you  
just to prove my preachings

so please don't fold over my edges  
and trample right over me  
painting red slander over my careful words  
(that's not very polite)

please, Mr. Man, sir,  
take what I say into consideration

how can you say we've overcome so much  
when the risks just seem to grow?  
how can you say we're at our best?  
when The Others true colors have just begun to show?

we're still a fledgling, Mr. Man, sir.  
or maybe, it's now that I think  
that we've become the fledgling from our great mother bird  
and good old terra firma has taken back her control


	13. 3/23/14: soldiers

what's the fuss?  
why so serious?  
come sit, take a seat  
every Phil and plain Jane out there  
you're in desperate need of a lesson

of blue skies and green fields  
overrun by ghostly demons  
and hellish fires  
scorching through   
the pages of our lives  
like they were already ashes

(and maybe they were  
maybe our pages were written  
with the dust of our bones  
predisposed to chaos and pain)

because in these fields  
these fields akin to battlefields  
there are the soldiers  
who march on through the night  
with their souls barred on their skins  
seared on their necks

with the words of a love song  
of a hate song  
of a pained song

these soldiers, they got the music  
it's running through the beating  
contours of their leaking hearts  
and coursing through their legs  
pushing them father then you've ever been

why put them down?   
why shoot these soldiers down?  
they're just marching  
through the fields  
putting out their fires with their own   
(explosion cancels out implosion)

don't turn off the music  
don't stop the flow  
keep it ringing  
let it light up the night

because these soldiers  
forget their sins and their scars  
bloody battles fought and  
the reckless carnage  
can exist within the compact body  
and soul of each jaded soldier

when they turn on the music  
it's peace washing over  
peace filling up  
peace drowning out  
everything else  
and the only tick  
is that of their hearts to the bass

so sit down and shut down  
put down your hands  
and close your eyes  
they're not turning the music off  
anytime soon 

and they'll pray for you  
because your empty shells   
could use a little light  
on the golden days  
and the spilled blood

because being able to   
embrace the darkness  
and live with the light  
is something that  
even the corpses need to rest in peace


	14. 3/24/14: family

What do you do when your family is broken?  
when your strongest link is cracked in the middle?  
because i'm the weakest chain and  
I'm barely holding on, praying for a hand to keep me standing

most days, I can walk with my head held high  
and let myself believe that I'm okay  
with my family that's crooked at the bones  
and their problems that's as hot as their blood

but next thing, everyone's gone and away  
married or across continents and seas  
or six feet under   
(lies, deceit and bitter sibling rivalry)  
and I'm left with the weight of the break on my heart

i feel so alone at night  
and I know she feels it, too, I can see it in her eyes  
but the bags under our eyes won't   
hold the burden of our gray skies forever

the bags will tear and the rain will pour  
and no one will care if the lightning strikes  
because what's lightning if there's no sparks?

in a world where no one cares about spilled tears,   
a little thunder and lightning   
is equivalent to muddy puddles on the sidewalk  
(I'm just a muddy puddle on the sidewalk,  
clinging to the ground, praying I don't get run over)


	15. 3/30/14: barren walls

i wanted to stain the walls  
with the words from my pen  
meant to be spoken with my tongue

so one rainy night  
under the grace of the stars and the moon  
i painted a thousand words  
onto those barren walls

and they took their first breath  
last night, under my drunken gaze  
and i felt like   
i left parts of my skin there

another piece of myself  
held up on display  
on those barren walls 

(just look a little closer)


	16. 4/11/14: sing me to sleep, baby, one last time

i pray, i dream  
for you to sing me to sleep

like a rite of passage  
you'd send me off   
away from this world filled with chaos  
with the syrup ladden words dripping from your tongue

and i'd rise up to meet them  
like a starved bear after the winter  
yearning for its honey

and i wish that when i closed my eyes  
my head curled around the web  
spun by your numb fingers  
i wouldn't be swallowed alive

by the aftermath  
that surely follows in your wake

no matter how pretty your voice is  
your words sting like a motherfucker

but i pray, i wish  
that your voice would soothe me  
to sleep

instead of keeping me awake  
at all hours of the night  
running from demons with your likelihood

i want to love you  
but i can't, not today, not anymore  
i've come to reclaim my nights and my days  
as my own


	17. 4/14/14: walls pt. II

i feel like my life is a summary on a wall  
or by a wall  
or as a wall

there are walls everywhere

humankind built walls  
to keep the weather out  
to keep the animals out  
to keep the cold out

to keep the children in  
to keep the heat in  
to keep the food in

such rudimentary needs for a wall

but now

they keep the people out  
they keep the attachments out  
they keep the hurt out

but now

they keep the person in  
they keep the love in  
they keep the pain in

but now

they can be more stifling then intended to be  
when created for such rudimentary needs

but even now though

they can be wonderful  
they can be painful

walls they  
have parts of lives pinned down  
have stories written in colors and pictures  
have people mapped out by the inks of their prints

walls they  
let the voices seep through  
let the emotions seep through  
let the turmoil seep through

they can be barren barriers against nature  
they can be windowless windows into a life   
they can be pourous cement blocks into a heart

and sometimes my life is summarized by the walls i set up  
the walls i tear down  
the walls i stand by


	18. 4/16/14: safe and sound

it was carved in her bones  
and mixed in her blood  
it was on the skin of her forehead  
it was ingrained in her gut

she was meant, she was built  
for the front line  
for the epicenter of chaos

anything less wouldn't suffice

she was their savior, their protector  
she was their guiding light  
she was their light in the dark

and now, she was  
being shuffled around in the dark  
hiding in the shadows  
waiting for the optimum moment to strike

but she felt the darkness taking her  
and swallowing her light  
she felt her light diminishing  
with the remains of her city

and as her cobalt eyes drank in  
the ashes and embers falling from the sky  
and the buildings drowning in dirt  
and the people choking on blood  
and the monsters tearing through everything good left in the world

she felt as dark as the tunnels she was running through

and even, soft assurances  
wrapped in wiry muscles  
and the scent of musk, willow trees and home  
couldn't shake her despair

[she crashes to the ground]

all she feels, is the tears leaving her eyes  
those traitorous tears, damn  
her body hiccups and shudders  
she's falling apart in his arms

it's an oblivion unique to hypersensitivity  
though, only to the production of oxygen  
and release of carbon dioxide in her body  
and the muscles clenching and unclenching in her face  
and that salty, dry taste of tears

 

and the only thought in her head is-  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

 

("just close you eyes, the sun is going down  
you'll be alright, no one can hurt you now  
come morning light, you and i will be  
safe and sound"  
he murmurs)

[she stills in his arms, and her breathing is shallow  
her eyes are empty and cloudy  
she is unresponsive and breathing]

 

("don't you dare look out your window  
darling, everything's on fire  
the war outside our door keeps raging on  
hold on to this lullaby. even when the music's gone")

\----

and maybe tonight, she is broken  
under the weight of the broken bodies on the streets behind her  
and the cries of the monsters hunger  
and the screams of the people, dead or alive

(she feels everything in the air:   
everything seems wrecked in the moon's shadow)

but come morning light,  
she will be tall  
and she will be strong  
she will glue herself back together again  
and pour water on any lingering fires

she will save the lost souls  
and fight the monsters one last time  
she will, she will, she will

because for tonight, she's safe and sound in his arms

(we can't be saved by a dead savior)


	19. 4/16/14: scapegoat

I think I have a problem  
because you're my 2 AM thoughts

you slip past my defenses   
and appear in the delusions in my head  
you materialize in the dreams of my mind

i see you by my side, through thick and thin  
and back when, we were young and stupid  
i feel years of love and pain

i feel the fights and the anger,  
the fear and the insecurities  
I feel the joy and the euphoria,  
the pride and the accomplishments

i feel the long nights and the short  
(and I feel incredibly silly at this point)

and i imagine living my life  
with you as my other half  
and i can't say i'm disappointed

you bring a warmth in my heart

so maybe, I'll keep this problem  
because what harm could it do?

i know, that when I see you  
that reality is harsher  
and you're actually a douche  
and I'll want to slam your head into a car door

but for tonight, you'll be my scapegoat  
and I'll ride you till the morning sun

;)


	20. 4/20/14: mirror

i don't like who i see in the mirror today  
today i won't look at her when she stares  
stares at her reflection searching for answers  
answers to her questions about her humanity

humanity that to her, seems like a dream through blurred glass  
glass broken on the empty road which she walks  
walks at night when the day feels too heavy  
heavy with the catalysts of her self destructive thoughts

thoughts that spin in her head at night  
night when she thinks of her sins  
sins that are not sins, but blunders  
blunders that are mistakes  
mistakes that feel like sins-

(at this point, her head is spinning  
and she thinks there are three heads starin back at her  
one suspiciously dressed like a devil  
one suspiciously dressed like an angel  
one suspiciously dressed like a doll)

(at this point, her eyes are misty  
and she thinks she's too silly for this life  
she surely won't make it through high school  
they'll eat her for breakfast  
and hang her skin up on the flagpole)

but she's so confused  
she doesn't know where to go  
she doesn't know how to act  
she doesn't know how to go forward

she's stuck as a child in an adult's world  
(and dammit, she's scared and can't find /her/ mommy)

she cringes   
because she made a fool of herself today  
because she spoke before she thought today  
because she potentially hurt a child's feelings today  
because she led someone on today

she cringes  
because she shouldn't be so self-centered  
because she should be thinking about others  
because she should be taking responsibility for her actions   
because she should be taking care of her family  
because she should be much more mature than she actually is

 

and she's drowning in the sea  
of everything she is, should be and wants to be  
staring back at her from the murky mirror

and she doesn't want to drown tonight  
tonight she doesn't look at the mirror

tonight she can't look at herself


	21. 4/22/14: boredom

boredom, I found, is quite exhausting

(but, who is to say that  
it's the boredom that's killing me  
or the mundanity of everyday life?)

when I was young, I used to count the houses on my street  
I never could count past five  
they were whizzing by too fast  
and I only caught glimpses of the lives inside

The houses were so different, they were different in every way  
from the colors 

(reds to blues to yellows)

from the people inside 

(indian to white to black to asian   
to old to young   
to vegetarian to feminist to redneck)

from the inside out, they were stories  
three stories high and whispering  
to be unwrapped

however, as my years were marked  
with the number of my glasses  
maybe, i thought, the reason why the houses seemed grey  
could be marked up to my glasses too

they were just passing blurs through the side of my eyes  
and they only flashed back to life  
once every blue moon

and with the houses, everything lost its color  
and once i said  
I could understand why the world was black and white  
because i'm seeing clearly through these glasses  
but nothing has color

everything is the same, and its pounding in my head  
i want to scream, i want to shriek  
i want to rattle the world at its seams  
i want anything to shake my bones

i need to feel something  
other than this emptiness, this boredom  
with everything I'm feeling

because everything is the same  
the houses, the people  
the problems, the feelings

it's a damn circle and it's not breaking  
and everything i feel is nothing new  
and dammit, i need to feel something  
this boredom is gnawing at me

(i realize, that boredom may sound apathetic,  
however, when you're tired of feeling a certain way  
you're bored  
and I'm bored as hell)

someone get me out of this town  
someone get me away from these people  
someone get me a new heart, new eyes  
someone let me feel again

(but I'm scared to let someone in  
to leave my heart open for someone to shatter  
just to feel any semblance of emotion

and I'm scared to let someone change my life,  
it's safer by myself

but isn't that the attitude that started the circle?)


	22. 5/23/14: something so ridiculously blind that im embarassed

there are few things in life  
family is not one of them  
but friendship is

because i've seen friends hold  
their own against the weight of the sky  
whilst pinned down by everything  
bred from the dirt of the earth

(including:  
vile villains under their beds  
covert spies in their lives  
broken familes like broken glass)

and i've seen friends rampage  
with brooms and flashlights  
with their bedsheet capes billowing  
between their cut up legs  
to aid in each other's battles  
against the monsters in their closests

i've seen friends bulldoze through  
cement walls fit for nukes  
and spend years, applying warm water  
to the pulsing wounds at the center  
trying to fix the bent

i used to think friends were fleeting  
like everything else in this world  
i used to believe that the only fact  
that stood alongside death  
was loneliness

but sometimes, these damn humans  
carved out pools of golden fuzz  
in aged, ashen hearts of the weary  
and show the light beneath the cracked surface

and somewhere down the dark road  
they made me believe in good  
when i thought good was a fairy tale  
because friends are golden  
if they are eternal


	23. 6/8/14: screams

she was screaming at the heavens,  
screaming with her heart on her sleeve  
and her feet rammed deep into the ground

she was screaming and crying  
and swaying in a stupor  
and her tears were ablaze with molten moonlight  
but her body was on fire, thrashing and flying all around  
the empty, eerily beautiful yard

and she looked like a fallen angel  
no, she looked so iridescently real  
like she was reality and the world itself was just an illusion  
and she had broken through its glassy walls  
and was setting fire to the sky with her fiery breath

"start counting your blessings,  
because one day i'm going to vanish  
and never look back

i'll burn through your bridges  
and leave you stranded  
i promise you, i'll leave you behind  
and i promise, i'll make it hurt

you won't even know what hit you,  
i swear it  
you should've seen me as i am  
when you had the chance

i'm not afraid of the dark,   
i'm not afraid of being alone

you hear me?  
i said, do you hear me?"

and then a pause  
and then a hand rubbing the back of her neck  
and then a sigh  
and then a whisper

"it's not that i /want/ to hurt you,  
i'd really rather just fade away  
but i know myself  
and i know that i won't leave without making an impression

i just wanted to hold your hand  
and for you to never let go  
but sometimes hands aren't meant for holding  
but for letting go  
and i'm letting you go

i'm going to keep pushing myself forward  
even if that leads me away from you"


	24. 6/9/14: some naive bs about saving myself

someone get these demons out of my head  
someone pull the sins from the palm of my hands  
someone slay the monsters under my bed

someone save the girl crumbling in my room  
because i don't recognize her anymore  
someone guide the light back in my eyes  
someone set fire to the ashes in my heart

someone wake me up and let me breathe  
someone show me that i'm not just  
oxygen circulating through capillaries and arteries

someone touch me like a hand reaching into the dark  
someone hold me like the soul of someone you lost  
someone say my name like a prayer that's been answered

but most of all

someone show me i don't need to be saved  
that it's all in my head, in the cages made of vines  
someone show me that i'll fight my way through  
screaming and cursing my way back to life

because i shouldn't rely on others to save me  
when i won't save myself


	25. 6/21/14: the girl on fire

her screams echoed through the night  
they pierced the moon and  
the stars wept for her

but she never saw the shooting stars  
falling to earth in her name  
because she refused to see  
the light during the night

she was lost, searching through  
mountains and the sea  
swimming and drowning  
climbing and falling  
fighting and crumbling

trying to find the parts of her soul  
that turned to ash and scattered in the wind

 

but it was too late  
those parts of her were gone  
and they were never coming back

but slowly the light was carved into her spine  
and she realized that she had been fine all along  
there was no reason to fear the dark  
because she'd set the darkness ablaze with her fire

and soon, she began to light the sky  
and burn down the bridges  
leading to the heart of her darkness  
and she stood tall over the ashes

and she laughed and she smiled  
because she was someone new  
someone different from the girl she lost  
and that someone   
caught the stars in her palms  
and blew holes in the demons that chased behind her

all by herself


	26. 6/23/14: greatness

they see the great poets lying under crab shells  
lying in a drugged haze distorting reality   
into crystals and llamas and fallen stars

they see the great poets drinking booze  
in peeling bars where the rust   
greatly outnumbers the wallpaper  
and they see the sorrow laced into the chairs  
and the cracked linoleum floors

they see the great poets singing to the busy streets  
in second rate clothes with second rate faces  
and they think 

"how miserable, these great poets are"

so how am I supposed to compare?  
so how am I supposed to make my name?

when I'm doing alright.

all I have are my words that drip from my tongue  
and spill from my fingers  
in the dead of the night  
and wrap around my eyes until they're all i see

and i think  
i can't be great  
because i'm not a victim to drugs or poverty  
because i'm not a victim to my sorrow  
because i'm not a victim of the world

because i like fire  
and i like burning everything i touch  
and i like burning my problems down

and i like warming everyone  
and i like warning everyone  
and i like saving everyone

and now, i don't know  
where my anger about greatness stems from  
where do i begin?


	27. 6/29/14: her

I hope she's worth it,  
every tear, every layer of skin that you'll shed  
and every drop of blood that spills in her name

and i hope she's more than crab shells  
and pirouettes in the dark  
to the song of a broken record  
because all i see is your blood on her walls

and i hope that she's fixing the holes  
in your sand castles and patchwork heart  
and not filling your bloodstream with water

and i hope that she's less than a name on a hurricane  
because i'd hate to see you washed ashore  
marooned on a desert island

because if you're a snake  
then she's a fox  
and your relationship will be dysfunctional at best


	28. 7/6/14: today was so tiring

you told me not to write on furniture  
but where else do i leave my  
soul when i go out for tea?  
than on my chair or on the open window

and you showed me that  
sometimes my life is   
on an egg shell  
and i'm the chick praying not to break through

not yet, i'm not done yet

and she hugged me from behind  
with her thin arms  
and i was wrapped in a steel trap  
and i wanted to rip my heart out  
and sell it to the black market  
because she made me feel so fake

and i danced with spoons and forks  
and tried my very best  
to look like i belonged  
but we both knew, i didn't

and everything is so intense  
and i don't understand  
/why/

i'd just shove everything under your pillow  
and sleep on it  
and let it pass like the moon  
because it's no big deal

but now we're swallowing acid  
and bleaching our throats  
because you say we should forget  
but not before, we fall to our knees  
trying to pick each other up

but i don't understand  
why it hurts  
why it stings  
it was just a few words  
everything benign  
why did it hurt you so much?

honestly, you make me want to cry

you paint me black and   
you're handing me the dirt from my shoes  
and reminding me that it's there

and i don't know what to say anymore  
it's only been two weeks  
but i'm ready to die  
because the future starts now  
and i'm the car in the intersection that won't start  
and i'm so very screwed

and i just want to sit in room in the dark  
and watch japanese shows, listen to music  
and write poems all day long  
(and build up my farm)

and i want to pretend i'm smart, deep  
and that i'm good with friends  
that i'm somewhat human  
and my poems are more than  
the prepostion 'and'

but today was so tiring  
i don't know what to think  
and i don't want to wake up tomorrow  
i'm not depressed i swear  
it's just that the sheeps lost their wool  
and i don't want to count anymore


	29. 7/6/14: crescendo

(i close my eyes)

i have no words left to say

i can sympathize with a forty something year old man  
singing about heartbreak and broken atmospheres  
and violin corpses

 

i'm just 

f  
i  
f  
t  
e  
e  
n

so young just a fledgling,  
in all honestly we grow up so fast

but my heart is already moving with symphony   
and i'm trying not to be swept away by the crowd  
but my violin is never in tune  
because i keep hitting the wrong notes  
it's a shame when you're trying to play the solo

all i see is the future laid out in front of me  
and i think it's fair to say  
it scares the shit out of me

im just fifteen and hitting all the wrong notes

and the crescendo is measures away  
and my fingers are slipping down the board  
and my bow is losing its strings  
because the music lost its life

and it's just vibrations against a hollow casket  
because i couldn't see   
how to make it beautiful


	30. 7/6/14: a poem to a human

i wanna try and bite my tongue  
and spell with my blood  
because my hands aren't enough

i wanna try and seal my bones  
into the spaces between my words  
and maybe if i shove hard enough  
these spots will grow a backbone  
and move like people do; like a poem

maybe if i shave down the edges  
and cut out the bruises  
it could look like a masterpiece  
mistaken for greatness

(it's really just bits and pieces  
of something i was trying to reach  
sewn together with my veins  
under the influence of  
night's narcotics and music's cacophony)

maybe if i work hard enough,  
you could read between the lines

and then my mission would be completed

to have a poem comprable to humans


	31. 7/8/14: dirt

you're in my skin  
and no matter how hard i scrub  
i can't seem to come clean

i don't know what's lying beneath the dirt  
what shade am i?  
i've long since forgotten the color of my skin  
you've rolled me in mud and   
brought the clouds down over my eyes

sometimes, i think, in the bathtub  
that i can drown under the drain  
and wash you off my skin  
and i'd run down the pipes  
because i don't know who i'd be without you

sometimes, i think, on the cold floor  
that you'd turn into good memories  
and i'd never want to wash you away  
because than that would mean  
the end of golden days drinking the sun

sometimes, i think, in front of the mirror  
that i can't even see the dirt  
that i'm just who i am without you  
that you're nothing but dirt from a long day past

but i never know, how i feel  
because i'm rolling in dirt  
and i'm never clean

what color was i again?


	32. 7/8/14: skeleton

i can't write poems about you anymore  
i'm sorry, i think  
but when you come to mind  
i flatline  
and there's just nothing

my heart stops feeling, stops working  
stops 

(not in the romantic sense, please)

in the sense, that my heart is dead  
you burned me up  
and now you're a used match in the rain

i can't use you anymore,  
you can't make me feel anymore

(and it's a damn shame,   
you turned into a nice guy  
but your skeleton scared away   
too many nice ones,  
people and thoughts)


	33. 7/8/14: flashes

hypersensitivity  
it's all in flashes  
it's just blood thrumming  
and bleeding veins  
and stark white floors

why is everything so white  
it's like snow  
maybe i'll freeze to death here  
the cold never bothered me anyway  
right?

and there are cotton balls in my ears  
and i think my brain   
is a soggy pile of earthworms  
but i can't think straight  
it's all leaning sideways

(they lied; hell is next to me  
not under my feet)

i think the mirror is cracked  
but my heart is cracked  
they both can't be cracked  
can they?  
broken glass, looks familiar

it's all in flashes  
(and not just because of the bulb  
in the process of burning out; like a shadow)  
and maybe that's my hand on the ground  
next to me, there's a phantom of a touch  
it's so lonely, that piece of flesh


	34. 7/8/14: define

i want to write you under the moon  
that is, until you're fading over the horizon  
because the stars are burning out  
and leaving you lonely

i want to spell the composition  
of your organs and your muscles  
with words, with words  
oh how i want to spell out your entire existence

i want to define your blood, your brain  
i want to spread you across a sheet of paper  
like spilled ink, beautifully

i want to have you with me,  
wherever i go  
to have your words in my soul  
to have a thousand words  
for a single picture of you

because then, and only then  
might i understand, what you do to me


	35. 7/8/14: type for me

it's my misfortune, to clarify

i'm no good with feelings,  
with increased heart beats, or   
increased circulation of blood  
in certain body parts

i'm no good with physiological reactions  
because that's my defintion of feelings  
of emotions

i need to spell things out,  
strip them down bare   
i need to crawl underneath the surface  
and observe and come to a conclusion  
logically, wordfully

i need words, to articulate

because i'm terrified, i don't know how  
to show you how i feel  
i no longer have faith in, my corporal body  
i just trust the ink from my fingers

so maybe you can read my words  
and _feel_ for me


	36. 7/9/14: am i right

i've written apologies   
until they took were the walls  
that kept the rain from pouring in  
hoping that they'd save me

and i know, that my hindsight  
ain't exactly 20/20  
i can only count to 10  
because the noise in my head's too loud

and sometimes, i wear my anger like a skin,  
i wear my happiness like a coat  
i wear my sorrow like a hat  
i wear my spite like a dagger

and i don't mean to sway,  
and fall and let you down  
but i'm just a little confused  
and lost and i don't know how to say  
the words on my tongue  
they're ground out by my teeth  
when i tense in anger

so you don't know what i mean

i mean, just wait a little longer  
i'll sort through the rubble  
of my ruptured heart  
and i might not like what i find  
but i know what is right  
and i'll swallow my pride and my hurt  
if it means, i can earn my place in this world


	37. 7/13/14: summer

find a way to deconstruct,  
to reduce me to atoms  
and map out what i feel  
because these roads look like veins to me

and we're walking barefoot in the streets  
and making dinner at three in the morning  
and dancing with our futures between our knees

we're reaching new heights and   
we're cracking through to the next day  
i'm finally seeing the future again

(even if it's just a glimmer)

maybe it's something in this summer air  
that's riding in my guts  
but i feel liberated, free  
and invincible

i'm hanging by a thread but i don't care  
i'm slipping into thin ice but the water's warm  
under the summer sun  
and the cracks look like veins to me

and i'm heading everywhere but where i'm supposed to go  
but with you by my side  
and you in my heart and thoughts  
and summer in my lungs

i don't care


	38. 7/27/14: anew

i write poems in my head  
about the stars burning in my chest  
or how i try to spin the words  
into the air in the dark of the night

and i can't seem to find the soul  
or the heart or the will-  
or the bravery-   
to mix my heart with my ink

i don't want to feel what i feel   
anymore, i want to  
wrap myself in,  
drink myself under  
the words flowing from my head, from your head

i just want to surround myself  
and immerse myself  
and find myself  
within the spaces of my words

maybe one day,  
i'll write myself anew

and then i'll write poems about that girl


	39. 7/29/14: if she was the sixties then the present would leave flowers at her grave

empire city was all paper bag buildings  
and steam powered humans  
and positively bursting at the seams  
with neon skeletons,  
too bright to be mistaken for dead

(even if they were)

she was all hipbones and  
aged liquor on bar shelves  
she tasted like the heavens  
and danced with the devil 

sordid and candid,  
she twisted the times around her  
wiry fingers, and pulled  
her life forward

she was all elvis presley concerts  
and cadillac escapedees  
and singing with the factory girls  
and playing with the paper boys

she was vintage and stained the stars  
and the air wasn't all  
smoke and sweat and misery  
when she floated through


	40. 7/30/14: you're the reason we fear the unknown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AKA The day I decided long poem titles were a Good Idea

houston, we have a problem  
you're pulling me up to space  
and my feet are lifting off  
of the ground, no i want to stay  
with the dirt, it keeps my mind clean

you're putting stars in my eyes  
and i'm trying to put them out  
with saltwater from the riverbed  
i'm trying to prevent  
the supernova that will inevitably  
swallow me whole and leave,  
nothing but nothing in my stead

i'm trailing behind your wake of   
blinding light, and trying to see straight  
behind my broken shades and it's   
so /not/ cool  
you got me falling to my knees,  
whoops, right into this grave i dug myself

and it's written behind my eyelids  
that you're trash, that you're no good  
that you're the monsters in my closet   
i've been trying to run away from  
but my heart is covered by cracked ribs  
that poke through my aorta  
and it's not pumping blood right anymore  
because it's certainly not supposed to be down there

i'm trying to raze the pedastal,  
that you've found yourself on  
it needs to burn to the ground, ashes to ashes  
your image needs to be struck down with the  
lightning you ignite in my veins  
i won't let you burn me alive  
no, i've worked to hard to stand up   
to get yanked into space  
and choke on you


	41. 8/2/14: i'd rather burn than fall prey to your rules

i miscaculated the weight behind my words  
and now i'm walking with a demon on my back  
and he keeps whispering all the wrong words  
to me, and i'm trying to spell right again

sometimes at night, i jump across the  
stars on the paper beneath my fingers  
and forget the cost of jumping to space  
from all the way down here;  
i forget how my feet touch the ground

they warned me, not to sell my heart  
or my soul  
but they didn't warn my about the dangers  
of losing my head to my words

because now, i can't see straight anymore  
i don't see in terms of up or down or left or right  
or black or white or wrong or not  
i see terms in relativity   
because all everything is, is an arrangement of words  
and the weight the movement resonates in the orchestra audience

whoops, my night spent playing with the tongues  
hanging off of my 'g's and 'y's  
left me too dizzy to grab on to   
the proper formation of sentence structures

i guess, i'm lost in this sahara  
but you won't see me complaining  
it's all relative, anyway  
and in my perspective  
i'd dance by myself and words all night  
while all grammar and formalities burned


	42. 8/5/14: if sundays were meant for resting then tuesday didn't get the memo because i think you've drained the life out of me and i still have days to go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the titles are only going to get longer from here

some days, i wake up feeling as broken  
as the window that's been cracked on the widow's walk  
for ages now- and i used to think  
that it had something to do with the  
mourning procession that brought us to this house,  
far, far away from where we started.

some days, i wake up looking at the parakeets  
in their cages with their feathers on the ground  
and i think that i might just be like them  
caged and shedding to the bone, you can  
see all the soft, supple and vulnerable flesh  
underneath, and i pray you won't hurt me

some days, i wake up and i count the gaps between my teeth  
and i think that maybe that's why my body feels weak  
and i think that food is just a dream that's too  
bittersweet to remember- and i know that these are just  
excuses, that i need to stand up and walk again

but some days, i feel so broken and tired  
that my bones sigh and gasp and  
my blood seems to stop moving  
and my heart seems to stop beating

and all i want to do is lie down  
and stare at the sky  
and let the voices in the music  
carry me along the melody


	43. 8/5/14: i'm that boy that'd break your heart because i seem to have lost mine and i don't plan on taking it back anytime soon (it's a new perspective)

other poets write about how  
the boys on the playground, stole the stars  
from between their teeth  
and how the boys on the playground  
grew up into boys on the corner store  
selling cigarettes wrapped in silk  
and promising to cradle their hearts  
like the money lining their pockets  
while they pray for mercy because  
their hearts are too shattered,  
too scattered across these familiar floors

other poets write about broken girls  
wrapped up in skin stretched taught  
across ribs whose flowers have long since fallen  
to the ground and withered,  
alongside the slowly beating heart  
and how the girls ironically revel  
in their sadness like shooting stars

other poets write about heartbreak  
and pain  
and sorrow  
so bitter it's in their spine

but i write about how i don't understand it all,  
about how all i see is misery  
and how i promise i won't become another poet  
singing woes about dilapidated hearts  
and how all i want is stand myself up again  
and walk alongside sidewalks like a car  
driving down the gravel  
because then i'd have a direction  
and the traffic would be light


	44. 8/6/14: words are my drugs and my fingers are the dealers

sometimes, i get so pulled apart  
by the words that are drawn from the   
strings at the tips of my fingers  
like a puppet to its master  
that it's a quite an ironic relationship  
because sometimes, i forget  
where the strings begin and end  
and who is the puppet and who is the master  
and all i see, feel and taste are the words  
and i don't mind getting tangled  
up to my knees  
but i have to, because the world turns  
and i can't walk the earth  
if its still turning and my feet are tied

(so i remember, who is who  
where the words end and i begin  
and just what exactly words are  
to me, my soul and i  
and to the rest of the world)

(and i wake up)


	45. 8/6/14: this is where fairy tales start

she was all grace dripping from the edges of her leotard  
and i was all knuckles digging into your stomach

she picked up your pieces and set them on a high shelf  
far too high even if you shot up  
like the rocket you were meant to be

i tried to climb the walls in search for your pieces  
and when my fingers grasped the edges  
i threw them at your face  
because i didn't know how to say i cared

she danced around you to the words of a love song  
and promised she was being romantic

but i dreamt of putting you back together  
and thought to myself,  
that the romantics can wait until you're whole again

(and even then, who needs romance  
when we could burn an entire city to the ground  
with our sparks?)

she walked through the city like a river  
and like so, she held your hand  
slipping out of it so often, you'd never realize you were holding it

i have this fear of intimacy so instead  
i punch and i kick and i scream while hoping  
you could read between my bared teeth  
and see that i'm saying 'i love you'

but she has your head filled with the opera  
and it's too loud to hear me knocking down your door


	46. 8/6/14: sometimes we have too much shame for titles

she was all grace dripping from the edges of her leotard  
and i was all knuckles digging into your stomach

she picked up your pieces and set them on a high shelf  
far too high even if you shot up  
like the rocket you were meant to be

i tried to climb the walls in search for your pieces  
and when my fingers grasped the edges  
i threw them at your face  
because i didn’t know how to say i cared

she danced around you to the words of a love song  
and promised she was being romantic

but i dreamt of putting you back together  
and thought to myself,  
that the romantics can wait until you’re whole again

(and even then, who needs romance  
when we could burn an entire city to the ground  
with our sparks?)

she walked through the city like a river  
and like so, she held your hand  
slipping out of it so often, you’d never realize you were holding it

i have this fear of intimacy so instead  
i punch and i kick and i scream while hoping  
you could read between my bared teeth  
and see that i’m saying ‘i love you’

but she has your head filled with the opera  
and it’s too loud to hear me knocking down your doo


	47. 8/7/14: i think this deck is rigged because i'm losing all of my money

they say love is like a deck of cards  
that it's a matter of chance,  
or that i'm his queen of hearts  
but he's my king of clubs  
or that i got love in the clubs and spades  
and unfortunately,   
it's my hate that's in hearts and diamonds  
because i want to cut you   
across my skin like a diamond   
and the ones i love  
end up all bruises and weary sighs  
so i don't think this is what they meant  
when they said love is like a deck of cards


	48. 8/8/14: i'd give you the world but i can't promise what was never mine (and then what value do my words mean)

we're hanging out of balance on the side of the front lines  
that we've been ghosting through like nobody's business  
and it's quite beautiful  
that we both agree on the futility of life  
and i credit you with my stunningly drab outlook on the future

but you'll give me the world in your heart  
in exchange for mine  
and it's quite tragic because  
i can give you the world, i'd move mountains on my back  
for you, i'd bring the sky down  
but the one thing i can't give is my heart  
because i never had one

i can give you every star from the night sky, and the moon  
would join your collection before tea time,  
but i can't promise my heart  
because i don't know where it is  
i say that it's not hard to lose your head  
because it's right there between your shoulders,   
firm and steady  
but i seemed to have misplaced my heart in  
the caverns of my chest because it feels as empty  
as the echos that bounce off my ribs

i no longer feel a heartbeat,  
unless the sky is roaring and the pouring,  
or i see you smile,  
otherwise, i have nothing to give  
i have no 'i love you's' to roll of my tongue and into your palms  
i have no loving touches to paint your face with  
i have no warm hugs to call home  
i am just a vessel to your happiness  
that is all i have ever been, and that is all i ever have to offer

(it's extraordinarily tragic)


	49. 8/8/14: i'm as empty as this page was before i made something out of it

i grew a mind alongside those looking for theirs  
in the mirror and in the bathroom scale  
or in the expanse of their lover's body  
or even, in the lines between their poems

they told me, 'don't fall in love,  
you'll lose your head right after you find it'  
they told me, 'don't move oceans  
for people who won't bandage a cut on your finger'  
they told me, 'if the girl in the mirror,   
looks empty to you, than something is wrong'

but maybe, i never had a head to lose  
or a heart to wear, on my sleeve or my cheek  
because i'd move oceans for you anyway  
and i don't mind that the girl in the mirror is empty

because some nights, i think to myself  
that maybe i was just born empty,  
born to be a channel  
because i like to help you  
and i don't care if you walk away  
you never mattered anyway

some days, i really think i was born empty  
and it scares me but then i think  
'i'm empty, what can i do?'  
i'm nothing more than an imprint of   
everyone who i passed in my life  
and i think i'm okay with that

maybe it's just that, i'm still premature  
and my heart actually hasn't started working yet  
and my first cry hasn't pierced the night  
maybe, i'm just stillborn until  
i decide to be born

but until then, i just won't look at the mirror  
because the girl who stares back  
she's empty, and i'm okay  
but what's the point to looking  
if nothing stares back?


	50. 8/8/14: if love is beauty then you must be a masterpiece and we are the rejects in garbage aspring to be you

a saint once said,   
"love is the beauty of the soul"  
and so therefore,  
the absence of love is what makes the soul ugly  
and what of the criminals,  
who steal away the stars to  
place in the mouths of their not-so-lovers  
or what of the crooks  
who swindled their way   
into the high school passageways  
of his or her heart

or what of those,  
in a less poetic  
and more serious sense i warn you,  
who were born without love?  
who were born in lives without love?  
who born in souls, incapable of such beauty?  
what of those souls?  
were they just ugly, or just empty

i guess the question remains, what is  
the opposite of beauty? 

(sadly, i ask because  
i don't think my soul is ugly  
even if cannot love)


	51. 8/9/14: eye of the storm sees no lies, just tells them

sometimes, after a storm  
my heart forgets to beat  
and i sit like glass  
and wonder,  
what's to get better?  
this is all i have to look forward to  
this is all there is  
after all, the storm didn't knock me down  
and my heart still stands'

what i don't say is that  
i asked the storm to wash away   
the dirt on my glasses,  
the storm whispered to me  
and sold me on hurricanes  
and torn apart beaches,  
i looked in the eye of the storm  
and saught sunlight  
but instead i found a calm so bright  
it blinded me  
and now i think that it's light


	52. 8/15/14: the scientific method sometimes can be a bitch, but true to it's origin it's just simple logic

when i think about death,  
it's often along a hallway  
and my hand is dragging across the wall  
and it's leaving fluorescent trails  
because my nerves are lightning  
and my stomach is fire,   
my heart is bursting  
and it's the most alive i've ever felt

and the scene often pans, to the side  
it glides, i spin, i stop  
and there i am on the floor  
and the light is draining from my eyes  
and i watch my chest collapse  
for the last time

and i think- and some nights i realize  
\- that death is not a solution,  
it is a result,  
that i can't change because it's   
supported with cold, hard facts  
so i accept it  
and like the good scientist i am,  
i stumble in the dark  
trying to find a way to stop it


	53. 8/17/14: the one thing i'll never say because then it might be real

this is my secret that i will bring to my grave  
and you won't be able to read in between  
these lines of mine, i won't give you that privilage  
no, it's not a privilage  
it's the words of a scared young girl  
who doesn't know how to deal with  
this burden that she holds  
because it's very different from the others  
that plague her soul  
this one is dark and twisted and it could cost her her life  
because it could burn everything she knowns,  
burn it down to the ground  
and leave her with burn marks that stick to the bone  
and boil her marrow until her sins are displayed  
because this secret, it's shameful  
and she's ashamed  
and she's scared  
and she's not ready to lose everything  
when she's barely just begun to regain something  
and she's bitter because she doens't know why,  
she doesn't know how to escape its wake  
because they'll hold her down as the volcano erupts  
and make her walk on burning coals  
to make her pay for her sin, her secret  
she wants to believe they'll have mercy  
but this is one thing they made clear, they'll have none  
she doesn't believe she is wrong,   
she knows she can fight away her sin, and make it burn  
like it could make her burn  
but she knows she needs time, and solitude   
but how can she tell them that?   
they'll skin her alive just for asking


	54. 8/29/14: the imaginary friend (the misadventures of a girl trying to pick up after herself)

i dance with you  
i sing with you  
i talk with you  
i cry with you  
and i don't even know you  
but i want to map you like a blind girl maps  
her home with her four senses

i look up and meet you  
and you hold my hand  
and pull me up even though i'm a fire  
climbing a falling tree  
are we going down or up  
are we above water or drowning  
i can't tell

but you're always there  
in the darkest, in the lightest  
and lingering on my skin  
like a ghost of things to come

and when you speak to me,   
your words falling off of you tongue   
like leaves in the fall- making way for new life,  
(but not before a cruel winter)  
you strike me like lightning   
and spin me around even though   
my world was already shaking from above me  
but you hold down my ceiling  
everything's wrong with me but with you,  
it's so, so right

so i turn to my right,  
to tell you about my day  
and the corners of my mouth crinkle  
as i smile that smile that you say makes your day,  
i smile and try to say i love you,  
to thank you for fixing my world

and i turn to the right, to you  
i turn to you, and you're not there  
there's nothing there

there never was

and the words choke in my lungs,   
and fall to the ground like leaves in the fall  
dead, and devoid of purpose anymore  
and a sigh escapes my lips, like a prisoner  
weary in her bones, looking through bars   
to a world, unchained  
maybe i'll try again tomorrow  
when i can see you again  
(i swear, i saw you there for a moment,   
next time, please stay a bit longer,  
it's cold and dank without you)


	55. 9/11/14: check the clock, time's up and you got a kid from that one night stand

you should say sorry for the years i lost,  
spent counting the stars in your teeth  
before i realized that it- we were just dust in the sun  
and you tumbled right through my fingers like sand,  
you slipped through my heart like water  
and the fire in my stomach drowned  
because the mirror cut me that night  
and i didn't like who i saw staring back at me  
she looked broken, she looked jagged  
she didn't look /fixed/  
and she needed to be, you can't walk  
across the street if your feet don't- won't move  
and so you flew, and i flew  
but you flew with the wind  
and i broke through clouds,  
and now everything is dust in the sun to me,  
and you're feeling a fire all of your own,   
with her in your arms  
and we're happy, we're on our own paths

(but i'd be lying if I said,  
your smile still doesn't make my heart stop,  
your laugh still doesn't make my heart yearn,  
if i said,  
your arms around her doesn't churn my acid,  
your face buried in the valleys of her neck,  
doesn't send me crashing into the sea.

that i don't write poems about you anymore.

except now i'm high in the sky,   
the sun driving behind me on the highway to hell  
because goddamn, i could love him  
but i should love the other one   
and at the same time, i'm screaming  
fuck love to the heavens  
because i don't have time for any of this

but then again, when you smile  
i have all of time to stare)


	56. 9/16/14: we're all albinos whoops

pale veins and pale blood,  
pale teeth search for answers  
at the lips of glass  
but then, it's midnight and the stars are weeping  
and the glass is shattered on the ground  
and you're staring at the bottom,  
in your hand, god it looks like you  
bottomless, how much can you take?  
before the rest of you gives,  
and you're shattered like the glass before you  
(you wish the moon would shine   
on your skin, like it does for this broken thing)

pale veins and pale blood,  
pale lips search for answers in the smoke  
but the pasty sky says no and refuses  
to move, to get up and it's very heavy  
on your shoulders; the purple flowers  
growing out of your hands wrap around you  
like a wet battery and those zebras,  
dance across your vision like tomorrows  
dances across the horizon

pale veins and pale blood,  
pale hearts search for the answers in all the wrong places,  
i can't say i'm much better  
i look for answers in the carcass of my rips,  
the caverns of my head, the catacombs of my heart  
and i just dig up skeletons and   
history seems to be carved into my spine  
and future seems to be carved into my eyelids  
so i can't see the present,   
slip me by

pale veins and pale blood,   
we're all so pale  
and so cold,   
slowly dying in the cold,  
in the fear, in the sickness  
in the pale skin wrapped around us


	57. 9/22/14: an eulogy for the dead girl

this is a song, a poem, a cry  
this is a anecdote,  
about the days where my words  
don't seem to be up to standard,  
when they are cut like wood,  
and chopped into pieces  
and slashed like a body at a murder scene  
and i certainly feel like that corpse.

about the days where my mind  
doesn't stay on one planet for too long  
and i see stars burn in my eyes  
because i never dug deeper than six feet under  
and all i ever saw was the sky,  
for the days i don't know where  
my head should be sitting anymore

about the days when my mouth  
is bursting at the seams, between my teeth,  
burning my tongue, like acid in my throat  
like a fire in my heart, with the words  
i never say, with the things  
dangling at the edge of my lips  
like an alcoholic at the bottle's rim  
but unlike the alcoholic, sometimes  
i walk away and pour water on the flames-  
alcohol was never good for putting   
out fires anyway

about the days when i don't who  
i'm referring to anymore  
because you could mean you or you or you  
and the amount of pronouns in my essay  
is equivalent to the amount of problems  
in my life and whoops, structured sentences  
aren't really my thing and i can't seem  
to find the right words to convince you  
to believe in me

(and yet again, i can't seem to finger, to identify  
who i'm talking to, maybe it's the mirror  
or the space next to me, or the version of you that  
resides in my head)

about the days when basically  
i'm a corpse six feet under  
staring at the burning stars  
with tsunamis rolling in my veins  
of words i should have said when i had the chance  
and i can't scream, i can't write this essay  
because it's not what needs to be said  
not tonight, that's a story for another night  
underneath a different sky,  
standing a breath away from someone else  
because everything here is all wrong,  
you make me feel all wrong  
(but can i really blame you)


	58. 10/1/14: in gym they told me dry firing was dangerous but i never understood until i met you

i made a mistake.  
and now everyone seems to have me in their palms,  
written out like the lines on their fingers.  
but i'm hiding under the curve of my tongue,  
waiting for the wind to die down  
because my voice is drowned out by the roar

i think, you horribly misinterpreted,  
i think, i horribly misused,  
my words that day on the water  
because now you think left is right  
when right is wrong and wrong is terribly painful

because you seem to think that i care,  
but simply i meant, i can come to care  
but i'm actively avoiding the notion  
of giving you the key to my heart  
because i know my heart is better kept inside  
i know, you can open me,  
but i won't let you because some things are better left closed  
and some things, should not be opened  
when they don't know what's resting inside

i don't love, but i can   
i don't owe you, but i'm starting to  
i don't need you, but i'm forced to  
i don't want you, but i'm lying

because i used the wrong words  
when the time was right,  
and all i need is for you to go away  
because i can't risk all i have  
so i'll take the other path, the one less taken  
because i can survive the solitude  
and the guilt that comes with hurting you

i'm sorry.  
i didn't mean to say what i did.  
i don't love you. 

so please.  
stop loving me.


	59. 10/1/14: i didn't mean to become a liar but you didn't mean become a martyr

i said i like you  
but i really don't  
i could like you,  
my mistake sorry,  
and the difference  
in between  
is a valley and  
an ocean  
worth of guilt  
(stop shaking,  
i don't have bandaids,  
i can't kiss your cuts-  
i can't put the knife down,  
it's my skin  
double edged)


	60. 10/1/14: the door says closed so please don't come in anyway

i'm just a scared girl,  
too scared to gamble   
with hearts, not belonging  
to me, i can't  
even my own  
please don't give me yours


	61. 10/6/14: i'm blind but not legally

and with every lull of the music,  
every rolling crescendo,  
i get puched farther back onto  
the recesses of my memory  
past snowy days surrounded by chemical reactions  
past summer days under the indian sun  
past spring days feeling anew like the budding flowers  
past winters and summers and springs,  
like turning the pages of a book  
or more accurately, i should say  
more like ripping through pages  
until all that is left   
is a hole in the script,  
suspiciously shaped like a me

and at the end- of the book, maybe you'll find  
a girl sitting between printed words  
trying to paint pictures with the fabrics  
of worn out paper, crinkled and wrinkled,  
watered down and torn up,  
weary and breathless,  
she's sitting and her eyes are blank  
because she used the color of her eyes  
to remember what the past looked like

and when the music fades to a black,  
my eyes fade to a close-  
a breath, a sigh, a clench, a release-  
and my eyes are open but they no longer  
see the present unfolding right before them


	62. 10/15/14: i think you missed a period or two or maybe some common sense

like a broken record,  
your words hung from the tips of my lashes  
until all i could breathe  
were your lies and your rage  
until all i could choke on  
were the years i wasted   
like a broken record,  
your words coated the   
tips of my ears  
like fog clings to your broken windows  
and when i wipe my windshielf clean  
i see broken bottles and broken dreams  
in the passenger seat,  
and the girl i used to be wrapped up  
in silk in the trunk,  
and the pieces of my soul  
glued to the brakes, and to the airbag  
like a broken poem,  
we were a train wreck  
in between the ridges of a spinning record


	63. 10/30/14: price of booze rises with oil prices

we searched for the words  
at the bottom of bottles  
and when we cut ourselves on   
broken glass  
we bled booze, bitter and burning

we used to mix like tequila and wine  
\-- we didn't, never in our wildest dreams  
did we think to wipe the salt  
from our lips

we were hangovers every hour of the day  
without any chance to forget  
the nights before

i hope i can write you off  
as another wild party  
because i got smashed  
and i can't find the pieces


	64. 11/10/14: winter is here and the heater is broken

too cowardly to die  
too cowardly to live  
so i live under the pretense  
that i'm angry at   
everyone and everything  
but really  
i'm just angry at myself  
and i can feel the blade cut deeper  
and the ice start to take over  
and the fire start to freeze  
until it's just a hollow breeze  
in the back of my chest  
and it's as cavernous  
as the irises of my eyes

(and i hope,  
one day you look at me  
and feel like a cold wind just  
knocked you out  
because that's how i feel,  
how i always feel)

(don't let me burn--  
eradicate--  
all of my bridges,  
don't let me start my reckoning  
because i don't want to burn)

(but baby, it's winter  
and we're in need of some heat)


	65. 11/17/14: anonymity and alone aren't cognates

it's in the silence of the crowd  
where under the guise of anonymity  
i let my walls crumble  
and i let the world see my eyes  
and i let the anger out  
and i let myself  
fall  
i let myself   
admit

i don't want friends  
i'd rather slip off beneath the shadows  
and float off the coast of  
some, drunken island that looks  
like wishes at the bottom of fountains

i don't want love  
i'd rather make myself a castle  
on pillars of sand,  
of fire and ice  
and pray that the spiders outside my door  
don't kill me

i don't want family  
i'd rather singe off my familial ties  
like cigarette butts  
and walk away like a smoker cold turkey  
and laugh like a bowler  
who just scored a turkey

 

i don't want the things that make me human  
i want the things that make me human  
i want to feel the thrumming of my blood  
i want to feel the aching of my heart  
i want to feel the burning in my bones  
i want to be consumed by my innards  
so that i no longer feel anything   
on the outside


	66. 12/15/14: sandwiches are more than just sandwiches thank you very much

They ask me how I want my sandwich  
and I'm like  
"I don't know, put some turkey on it  
and maybe some onion,  
don't forget the peppers,   
I like the spice  
and call it a masterpiece, please  
it's for my mother anyway"

as i stare at the ceiling and   
count at the holes.  
because it's cold outside  
and i slipped on ice this morning,  
and for once, my hands don't feel like  
they burn everything they touch

and my mother said not to break my hip  
and i told her not to break her back  
and she told me to be careful  
for her sake, and for mine

but like my sandwiches,  
i don't know what i'm doing  
i'm a mess, psuedo-quasi-something-maybe-like-a-piece-of-art  
and i float through life  
like the breath that left my lips this morning  
and condensed around my mouth  
and left before i could say goodbye

i'm reckless and unapologetic  
i'm frivolous and delirious  
and i'm starved for something more than   
sandwiches


	67. 12/15/14: don't ask me stupid questions

"Sweetheart, what do _you_ want?"  
Nothing that could ever belong to me.   
(Is that such a bad thing?)


	68. 12/15/14: i'd rather not

some days  
i really just want to  
punch everyone  
then go home  
yeah, that's about it

\----

Other days  
don't freaking touch me  
because i collect broken pieces for a living  
and my stock's been running short  
lately

\----

and few days  
if you don't hold my hand  
i might just burn  
your entire house down  
after i drown myself in my head

\----

but most days  
blahhhhhh.   
go away.  
pick again.  
call back another day.

**Author's Note:**

> all rights reserved. please ask before using.


End file.
